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Solar Power Water Heater - Does It Make Economic Sense

Author: AdrianFletcher
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Solar power water heater systems can help to lower your energy usage and the associated costs (heating water often accounts for a large proportion of the average households energy bills) so should you install a system ? This article will set out the criteria for making this decision easier and asks if you can justify installing a solar water heating system on purely financial grounds.

A Solar power water heater system is normally added onto the current hot water system. It is basically a method of collecting the sun's thermal energy. This is called a solar collector. It can be a flat plate collector such as a standard water tank or an evacuated tube collector. Both systems has features that increase the efficiency of absorbing heat and insulation to stop it being lost to the surrounding environment.

Water is moved past the flat plate collector or through the tubing. The will heat the water that is then pumped into the home plumbing, water tank or boiler.

So traditional utility supplied energy usage is reduced when it comes to heating water as the water has been already heated by the solar system. This will save on utility bills but will it save enough money to justify the time and expense required to install a solar water system in the first place ?

To start with, you should look into your existing hot water system. Saving money is not only about looking at free sources of energy but making your use of energy as efficient as possible. You should consider installing the latest energy saving boiler and get proper lagging to insulate the tank. The boiler should be the right size for your hot water needs. An over sized boiler will cost more over time.

After this, it comes down to five considerations, that you may have already established when you made the existing hot water system as efficient as possible. These are :

The annual amount of hot water used by your family - Take an average over a few months or record a whole year if you have the time. If you are taking an average remember that usage may increase in colder seasons and factor this into the total.

What time is hot water used - There will be greater efficiency of the solar system when the sun is at it's hottest. This will be the best time to use the system.

Is the current heating system conducive with the solar system.

How much the solar water system will cost - this depends on the size of the system which depends on your usage of hot water. With this said, the future should see solar systems drop in price as people become more interested in then.

The cost of the energy that your current hot water system uses - this will undoubtedly rise in the future as most of these fuels are finite. The price to find, extract and transport the raw materials will increase and this will be past onto the consumer.

So broadly speaking, solar systems will go down and traditional energy systems will go up. This bodes well for the future but what about now. When looking at solar power water heaters you will be given indications of probably energy savings based on time of the day and quality of sunlight. You can factor these figures into your annual usage and come up with an annual saving.